quarterly_business_review v1.0.0

name: quarterly_business_review description: "Run a quarterly business review with a client or an internal team: build the value record from baselines and sources, score last quarter goals honestly, write the misses with causes and fixes, read health from four to six signals, keep the core deck to eight to ten sections, and close with named asks, decisions, and a short next quarter plan. Use when preparing, writing, or reviewing a QBR or EBR deck, a quarterly scorecard, a client value review, or an internal quarterly review. For running the whole meeting system or cadence use meeting-operating-system, for customer success health and save plays beyond the review use customer-success-playbook, for vendor scoring use vendor-scorecards." metadata: { "version": "1.0.0" }

Quarterly Business Review

Purpose

A QBR has one job: get the people in the room to agree what happened last quarter, what it means, and what they will do next, with the evidence on the table. A QBR that only reports activity wastes the one meeting where a sponsor or a leadership team is willing to make decisions.

This skill covers both forms with one method. A client QBR (often called an EBR for senior audiences) proves value against the outcomes the client bought, owns the misses, and asks for the decisions the next quarter needs. An internal QBR does the same work for a team: outcomes for the people it serves, honest scoring, and clear asks of leadership. The shape is the same. The audience and the health signals change.

This skill is source neutral. It works from whatever systems hold the truth in your setting: product analytics, a CRM, a support desk, a finance system, survey tools, or a careful manual count. It does not require one folder layout, one slide tool, or one vendor platform.

Workflow

1. Fix the form, the audience, and the decision list before touching slides.

• Name the form: client QBR, internal exec QBR, or internal team QBR. Client reviews run 45 to 60 minutes and frame everything around the client outcome. Exec reviews run 30 to 45 minutes and cut anything that needs no decision. Team reviews run about 60 minutes and score goals before discussing them.
• Name who must be in the room for a decision to stick: the sponsor or budget holder, the day to day owner on each side, and anyone who owns a dependency in the next quarter plan.
• Write the decision list first: the two or three decisions this meeting must produce. If there are none, the meeting is a status update and should be a written update instead. Say so and save the hour.
• Ask the other side what they want covered. Salesforce guidance on QBRs makes the same point: tailor the plan to the customer priorities and how they want information, rather than running one fixed plan for every account. For an internal review, ask the leadership reader the same question.

1. Pull the value record, with evidence rules applied from the start.

• Start from the goals as written at the start of the quarter. Copy them word for word, with baselines and targets. Do not restate them from memory.
• For each goal, pull baseline, target, and actual from one named source system, with the pull date and the exact period covered. Keep a working table outside the deck so any number can be traced in seconds during the meeting.
• Follow references/evidence-and-health.md for every claim: source named, period fixed, calculation shown for any money claim, definitions held steady across quarters, and deck numbers reconciled to the system of record.
• Translate each metric into the outcome line once: hours returned, cost avoided, risk reduced, time cut, revenue protected, or work unblocked. Show the metric under the outcome line so the claim stays checkable. A metric with no outcome translation is activity. An outcome with no metric under it is a claim.
• Run the scorecard tool on the working table before drafting: python3 scripts/qbr_check.py scorecard --file scorecard.csv. The CSV header is metric,baseline,target,actual,direction,owner, with direction set to higher or lower. The tool returns a 0.00 to 1.00 progress score per goal, variance against target, and a green, amber, or red status. Use those scores in the deck unchanged. If you disagree with a score, fix the baseline or target record, not the score.

1. Score honestly and write the misses while the evidence is in front of you.

• Score each goal before any group discussion where you can. Scores written in the room drift toward whoever talks first.
• Write every miss in the five part shape from references/evidence-and-health.md: promise, result, cause, fix, and new commitment or an explicit decision to drop the goal.
• Name causes plainly: a wrong assumption, a capacity gap, a dependency that landed late, a scope choice made mid quarter. Do not write effort language as a cause, and do not name a person as the cause in a client deck.
• Check for a repeated cause. The same cause two quarters in a row moves from the misses section into the verdict, because it needs a decision, not another apology.
• Include financial misses in the same spirit: budget against actual or spend against plan, the top variances in one line each, the reason, and the recalibration. Hiding a money miss and showing it later costs more trust than the miss itself.

1. Read health from a few signals, shown separately.

• Pick 4 to 6 signals, one or two from each group in references/evidence-and-health.md. Gainsight guidance on health scores points the same way: a small set of reliable signals across use, support, relationship, money, and feedback, chosen because they track with renewal or risk, beats a long list nobody reads.
• Segment thresholds by stage. Onboarding work is judged on milestones and activation. Mature work is judged on outcomes, depth of use, and sponsor engagement. One threshold set for both misreads both.
• Show each signal with its trend and its status, then give the overall read: healthy, watch, or at risk. A blended score may sit beside the parts. It never replaces them.
• Name the watch trigger for next quarter: the signal, the level that changes the read, who checks it, and how often.

1. Build the deck in the fixed order, and keep the core short.

• Use references/deck-template.md: cover, verdict, last quarter goals, value record, honest misses, health read, money and resources when material, asks and decisions, next quarter plan, then an appendix that is never presented in full.
• Keep the core at 8 to 10 sections. Everything that supports a claim but needs no discussion goes in the appendix, labelled by the core section it backs.
• Write the verdict last and make it stand alone: status in one word, top three results with numbers and targets, the one problem that needs a decision, and next quarter priorities in three to five lines. Many senior readers read only this section. That is a fact to design for, not a complaint.
• Put each ask on its own line with what is asked, who decides, what it costs, what happens if the answer is no, and the date a decision is needed by. An ask missing any of those five parts is not ready.
• Limit next quarter goals to three to five, each with baseline, target, single owner, and a midpoint check date. Add a stop list: work that ends to make room. A plan that only adds work will fail in week six and the failure will look like a surprise.

1. Run the deck check, then send the pre-read 48 hours ahead.

• Save the deck outline or full text as markdown and run python3 scripts/qbr_check.py check --file deck.md. A BLOCK means a required section is missing or no owner is named anywhere. Fix blocks before sending. Treat warnings about length, missing source labels, missing dates, and missing baselines as work to do, not noise.
• Send the pre-read two days before the meeting, with a short note that names the decision list and asks readers to bring disagreements on the numbers before the meeting where possible. A number dispute settled by email saves the meeting for decisions.
• Keep the pre-read short: the core deck only. The appendix travels with it, clearly marked as backup.

1. Run the meeting for decisions, not for presentation.

• Open on the verdict. Spend about a quarter of the time on verdict, value, and misses, about a quarter on health and open discussion, and about half on asks and the next quarter plan. Presenting the scorecard slide by slide for most of the hour is the failure mode this split prevents.
• Park operational detail. When a topic needs a working session, name the owner and the date for that session and move on.
• Close by reading back every decision, action, owner, and date aloud. Book the next QBR date before anyone leaves the room or the call.

1. Close the loop within one working day.

• Send a one page recap: verdict, decisions made, actions with owners and dates, goals agreed for next quarter, and the next QBR date. Include nothing that was not said in the room. If something was left undecided, the recap says who decides it and by when.
• File the working scorecard table, the deck, and the recap together where the next quarter prep will find them. Next quarter step 2 starts from this record.
• Log any commitment made to the client or to leadership in the place your team tracks commitments, with the date from the recap. A QBR commitment that lives only in a deck will be missed.

Output Contract

Each QBR job produces:

• A decision list written before drafting: the decisions the meeting must produce, and the call on whether a meeting is needed at all.
• A working scorecard table: every goal with baseline, target, actual, direction, score, status, owner, source system, and pull date, checked with scripts/qbr_check.py.
• The core deck in the fixed order, at 8 to 10 sections, plus a labelled appendix.
• A verdict section that stands alone: status, top three results, the decision problem, and next quarter priorities.
• A misses section in the five part shape for every missed goal, with any repeated cause raised into the verdict.
• A health read: 4 to 6 signals shown separately with trend and status, an overall read, and a named watch trigger.
• An asks section: each ask with decider, cost, downside of no, and decision date.
• A next quarter plan: three to five goals with baseline, target, owner, and midpoint date, plus a stop list.
• A one page recap sent within one working day, and the next QBR date booked.

Operating Rules

• Never invent a number, a baseline, a survey result, or a client quote. If a number cannot be traced to a named source and period, it comes out of the deck or is labelled plainly as an estimate with its method.
• Never soften a miss by changing the goal wording, the baseline, or the metric definition after the quarter. Restate old quarters on a new definition or flag the break in the trend.
• Never present a survey score without the response count, or a money saving without the calculation and the source of the rate.
• Never let a miss appear for the first time in the QBR meeting if it was known earlier. Known bad news goes to the sponsor or to leadership when it is known, with the QBR covering cause and fix.
• Keep the core deck short even when the quarter was busy. Busy quarters need a longer appendix, not a longer presentation.
• Do not use the QBR to sell. Expansion or renewal talk belongs in the asks only when it is a real decision for this room, stated with its cost, and kept separate from the value record. Mixing a pitch into the value record makes the value record read as a pitch.
• Protect the other side details. Client data, internal staffing detail, and survey comments stay in the rooms they belong to. The worked example in this skill uses invented data for that reason.
• If the evidence cannot support a verdict, say the review is not ready, name the missing evidence, and set the date it will be ready. A short delay beats a confident deck built on gaps.